Pounding toy



J1me 1 5 G. B. CLEVELAND 2,837,862

POUNDING TOY Filed July 5, 1956 INVENTOR. GEORGE 8. CLEVELAND lag? W F M ATTORNEYS United. States P tent POUNDING TOY George B. Cleveland, Pacific Palisades, Calif. Application July 5, 1956,, Serial No. 595,991 1 Claim. 01. 46- -1 This invention relates to the toy art, and. more particularly to a novel form of pounding toy adapted to be used by small children. r I r In the general form of conventional pounding toy, one or more, and usually several, cylindrically shaped wooden pegs are frictional-1y fitted within holes formed in a board suitably supported by means which dispose it above the floor surface. A wooden hammer or mallet is utilized by the child to drive the pegs through the board until their upper ends are flush with the surface of the board. The board may be then inverted and the pegs driven in the opposite direction through the board.

While pounding toys conforming to the foregoing description are generally satisfactory, they have a number of limitations. For example, in order to defer excess wear occurring between the pegs and board, these elements are formed of a very hard wood, and even this expedient does not for long prevent wear occurring to the point where: the-pegs may be easily forced through the board. Also, care must be taken in frictionally fitting the pegs to the board, and once the pegs have been so fitted there is no control over the resistance to movement of the pegs in the board, except of course that the resistance to movement may be decreased by repetitive working of the pegs in the holes. Thus, with any given peg and board assembly, the pegs may be more easily driven by some children than others, according to the strength of the particular child.

An object of the present invention is to provide an improved pounding toy in which the resistance to movement of a peg with respect to the board does not depend upon frictional engagement therebetween, thereby eliminating the need of employing hard wood for these elements and eliminating any wear problem.

A further object of the invention is to provide an improved pounding toy, in accordance with the foregoing object, wherein means are provided to variably and selectively control the resistance to movement of the peg with respect to the board, whereby the toy may be adjusted in accordance with the age and strength characteristics of an immediate user.

Still a further object of the invention is to provide an improved pounding toy embodying means responsive to downward movement through the board of one peg to cause upward movement through the board of another peg, thereby eliminating any need to invert the board to pound the pegs back through, but more importantly injecting added elements of interest into the toy from the users standpoint.

These and other objects and advantages of the invention'will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the drawings forming part of this specification, and in which:

Figure 1 is a view in perspective of the improved pounding toy of the invention;

Figure 2 is a view in section taken along lines 2-2 of Figure l;

Figure 3 is a view in section taken along lines 3--3 of Figure 2; and

Figure 4 is a detail view in section taken along lines 4--41- of Figure 2.

With reference to the drawing, the toy is comprised of a top board 10, side boards 12 and 14, bottom board 16, and a central upright board 18. Board 10 is secured to side boards 12 and 14, as by screws 20. Bottom board 16 is fixedly supported between side boards 12 and 14, as by twopairs of screws, one pairbeing indicated at 22. Board 18 is fixedly secured to boards 10 and 16, as by a pair of top screws 24 and a single lower screw 26 (Figure 3).

A pair of pegs 28 and 30, which extend through holes 32 and 34 formed in board 10, are provided with bifurcated lower ends 36 which straddle the ends of a metal lever arm 38 and which are pivotally secured thereto by bolt and nut means 40, 42. The bolts 40 extend through oversize apertures 44 formed in lever arm 38. The latter extends through a vertically disposed slot 46 formed in board 18 and is pivotally secured to the board by a bolt 48' which extends through board leg 50, lever arm 38 and board leg 52, said board legs 50 and 52 being defined by slot 46. Bolt 48 is prevented from turning in board 18 by a non-round neck portion 54 which is received within a complemental counterbore formed in board 18, and the bolt is retained in the board by a wing, nut 56 which is adjustably threadably secured to the bolt.

As indicated in Fig. 2, the pegs 28 and 30 are nonfrictionally, or relatively loosely, fitted within holes 32 and 34. Thus, the board 19 otters no resistance to movement of the. pegs. relative to the board 10 is obtained by frictional engage ment of the lever arm 38 with legs 50 and 52 of board 18. The degree of frictional engagement therebetween is variable, being dependent upon the degree that board leg 52, which unlike board leg 50 is not positively connected to board 16, is caused to press against lever arm 38 by endwise compression of board 18 between the head 58 and bolt 48 and wing nut 56. In other words, board leg 52 is yieldingly movable toward board leg 50 by a tightening action of wing nut 56 on bolt 48 to frictionally bind lever arm 38 against rotative movement in proportion to the degree of takeup of the wing nut, and board leg 52 moves away from board leg 50 to, in effect, widen slot 46 toward its normal width dimension in response to a backing off of wing nut 56.

When the wing nut 56 is backed oif to the point where it is exerting no pressure against board leg 52, there is substantially no binding action of board 18 on the lever arm 38. Thus, the adjustable friction brake system for the pegs is such that the relative resistance to movement of the pegs with respect to board 10 may be varied from a substantially zero condition to a very high condition, i. e. one in which it would be ditficult, even for an adult, to move the pegs relative to the board 10 through the mere use of a lightweight and small wooden mallet, such as 60.

While the surfaces of the board legs 50 and 52 in engagement with lever arm 38 will be subjected to wear due to movement of the metal lever arm thereagainst, such wear is merely compensated for by further taking up the wing nut 56 to obtain the same frictional values as obtained previous to the noticeability of the wear condition. Of course, this wear takeup is limited by the degree of inward flexibility of board leg 52 with respect to the fixed board leg 50, but this degree of inward flexibility, though not great in a conventional value sense, is suflicient to allow such wear takeup for any normal expected life of the toy. This wear takeup feature is in marked contrast to the lack of any practical wear takeup feature in the Resistance to movement of the pegs 3. conventional pounding toy in which the pegs are frictionally fitted within the holes of the board.

Means are of course embodied in the toy to prevent any binding action between the lower end of board leg 52 and bottom board 1 6 One expedient, as is indicated in Figure 3, is to slightly shorten board leg 52 in comparison with board leg 50.

The oversize relation between apertures 44 formed in lever arm 38 and pivot posts 40 allows rotative movement of the lever arm to be translated to linear movement of the pegs, thus preventing any binding action between the pegs and the board 10. Of course, binding action between the pegs and the board could be prevented by elimimating the oversize characteristics of apertures 44 and increasing'the size of the board holes 32 and 34 relative to the pegs 28 and 30. This, however, is not a desirable arrangement, although applicant does not necessarily mean to disclaim such an arrangement as being part of the present invention, because the board holes would be sufiiciently oversized in relation to the pegs to enable the latter to flop around therein, and this would detract not only :from the appearance of the device but also from its mode of operation as it appears to the eye. It is desirable to have the protruding tops of the pegs related to the board in simulation of the conventional-type pounding toy, and thus the preferred form of the toy is that in which the degree of oversize of the board holes with respect to the pegs is just sufiicient to prevent any undesirable frictional drag therebetween. In fact, in a prototype of the subject toy, the degree of oversize between the board holes and the pegs was suificiently small so as not to be noticed initially by a person casually observing the toy operation.

While a preferred form of the invention has been shown and described,'it is to be understood that the toy is subject to modification within the spirit of the invention and the scope or equivalency of the appended claim.

4 What is claimed is:

. A device of the class described comprising upper and lower spaced apart horizontally disposed boards, a pair of spaced apart and parallel vertically disposed boards interconnecting and supporting said horizontally disposed board, a fifth board extending between and supported by said horizontally disposed boards and disposed between and in parallel with said vertically disposed boards, a pair of holes extending through said upper horizontally disposed board, said holes being disposed at opposite sides of said fifth board, a pair of pegssubstantially non-frictionally fitted within said holes, a slot formed in said fifth board and extending vertically therein from the lower end of said board to a point short of the upper end thereof, a lever extending through said slot, a bolt extending through said fifth board and said lever transversely of said slot and pivotally supporting said lever, a pivotal connection between the lower end of each peg and an end of said lever whereby downward movement of one peg relative to said upper board will cause upward movement of the other peg relative to said upper board through pivotal movement of said lever, at least one portion of the lower end of said fifth board at one side of said slot having no fixed connection with said lower board whereby said board may be edgewise compressed to frictionally grip the portion of said lever disposed within said slot, and a nut adjustably threadably engaged with said bolt adapted to enable variable edgewise compression of said fifth board.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,403,522 Goldstein-et al. July 9, 1946 2,564,348 Swirkal Aug. 14, 1951 2,639,542 Miller May 26, 1953 2,646,646 Glass July 28, 1953 

